with_scope and named_scopes ignoring stacked :order clauses

If you’ve been using with_scope and named_scopes a lot with ActiveRecord you have probably noticed that the :order clauses defined at the scopes are lost and only the first :order clause is used. If you defined an :order clause you’d like to have it merged with the other ones already provided. Here’s a simple example:

class User
  named_scope :by_first_name, :order => "#{quoted_table_name}.first_name ASC"
  named_scope :by_last_name, :order => "#{quoted_table_name}.last_name ASC"
end

Our user has two named scopes defined and both of them define an :order clause, if we try to run a finder like this:

User.by_first_name.by_last_name.all

This is the generated query:

SELECT * FROM `users` ORDER BY `users`.first_name ASC

As you’ve noticed, only the first :order clause was used, the last one was lost. Our ideal SQL query would have to look like this, with both :order clauses being used:

SELECT * FROM `users` ORDER BY `users`.last_name ASC , `users`.first_name ASC

That’s why we’re going to hack the with_scope method a litle bit to reach our goal. This issue was already reported to the Rails issue tracker but there’s no fix yet so our only hope is to monkeypatch Rails to behave as we expect it to, so here’s a really simple fix for the problem:

ActiveRecord::Base.class_eval do

  class << self

    def merge_orders( *orders )
      orders.map! do |o|
        if o.blank?
          nil
        else
          o.strip!
          o
        end
      end
      orders.compact!
      orders.join( ' , ' )
    end

    def with_scope_with_hack(method_scoping = {}, action = :merge, &block)
      method_scoping = method_scoping.method_scoping if method_scoping.respond_to?(:method_scoping)

      # Dup first and second level of hash (method and params).

      method_scoping = method_scoping.inject({}) do |hash, (method, params)|
        hash[method] = (params == true) ? params : params.dup
        hash
      end

      method_scoping.assert_valid_keys([ :find, :create ])

      if f = method_scoping[:find]
        f.assert_valid_keys(VALID_FIND_OPTIONS)
        set_readonly_option! f
      end

      # Merge scopings

      if [:merge, :reverse_merge].include?(action) && current_scoped_methods
        method_scoping = current_scoped_methods.inject(method_scoping) do |hash, (method, params)|
          case hash[method]
          when Hash
            if method == :find
              (hash[method].keys + params.keys).uniq.each do |key|
                merge = hash[method][key] && params[key] # merge if both scopes have the same key

                if key == :conditions && merge
                  if params[key].is_a?(Hash) && hash[method][key].is_a?(Hash)
                    hash[method][key] = merge_conditions(hash[method][key].deep_merge(params[key]))
                  else
                    hash[method][key] = merge_conditions(params[key], hash[method][key])
                  end
                elsif key == :include && merge
                  hash[method][key] = merge_includes(hash[method][key], params[key]).uniq
                elsif key == :joins && merge
                  hash[method][key] = merge_joins(params[key], hash[method][key])
                elsif key == :order && merge
                  hash[method][key] = merge_orders(params[key], hash[method][key])
                else
                  hash[method][key] = hash[method][key] || params[key]
                end
              end
            else
              if action == :reverse_merge
                hash[method] = hash[method].merge(params)
              else
                hash[method] = params.merge(hash[method])
              end
            end
          else
            hash[method] = params
          end
          hash
        end
      end

      self.scoped_methods << method_scoping
      begin
        yield
      ensure
        self.scoped_methods.pop
      end
    end

    alias_method_chain :with_scope, :hack

  end

end

You can place this code at an initializer (maybe called with_scope_fix.rb) or at your lib folder and require it in your initializers. And now all your :order clauses defined by named_scope or with_scope calls will be correctly merged and will not be lost in your code.